China Telecom added 18.3 million more 3G subscribers in the first half, bringing its total 3G subscriber number to 87.33 million. 3G subscribers accounted for 50% of the company’s mobile subscriber base of 175 million, beating rival China Mobile and China Unicom in terms of 3G penetration rate.
China Mobile, the world’s biggest wireless carrier with 740 million subscribers, has 19% of its customers on its 3G network, which is based on the home-grown TD-SCDAM technology. About 38% of Unicom’s 262 million mobile users are on its W-CDMA network.
Despite that, 3G APRU dropped to an unexpected 70 yuan, though monthly data usage of 3G handset users exceed 168MB, up 51% over the same period last year.
Meanwhile, revenues from fixed broadband services rose 5.5% to 35.2 billion yuan, as fixed broadband subscribers reached 95.82 million with a net addition of 5.7 million. Among them the number of FTTH subscribers reached 21 million.